


Permute and Combine

by JohnAmendAll



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: F/M, Multi, Sedoretu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-04
Updated: 2015-11-04
Packaged: 2018-04-30 01:29:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5145251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JohnAmendAll/pseuds/JohnAmendAll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A blush was creeping over Nyssa's face. "I don't like deceiving people. If we were prepared to get married we should accept the consequences."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Permute and Combine

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Subdivide and Multiply](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021782) by [lost_spook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lost_spook/pseuds/lost_spook). 



> I attempted to remix 'Subdivide and Multiply' for dw_remix, but the result came out more as a companion piece.

The sun was dipping near to the horizon, bathing the atrium in pink and turquoise light. Nyssa looked up from the circuit board she and the Doctor had been working on. 

"It's getting late," she said. "Perhaps we should leave the rest of this until tomorrow?" 

The Doctor nodded. "We don't want to get tired and ruin everything we've done so far." He set down the probe he'd been using. "I call that a good day's work." 

"Does that mean it'll be safe to go back into the TARDIS?" Tegan asked, though with no great hope in her voice. 

"I'm afraid not. I still need to patch up the atmospheric recirculator." The Doctor tapped at another partly-dismantled conglomeration of circuit boards, valves, crystals and sealing wax. "And then there's the water purification system..." 

"I get it. So we're stuck here for another night, at least." 

Nyssa gave her a sympathetic look. "At least." 

"And tonight's the night we swap over, isn't it?" 

Turlough looked up from the schematic he'd been working on. "That's right. You and the Doctor take the Mountain Chamber, and Nyssa and I get the Forest Chamber." 

"I still don't get why they need all these rules," Tegan said. "It's bad enough we all had to marry each other just to get somewhere we could live. But all that stuff about which rooms we sleep in and what colours we have to wear. We manage fine without it on Earth." 

"Really? You mean it isn't a rule on your world that the bride always dresses like a meringue and the groom like a penguin?" 

"That's a tradition, not a rule. They don't have to follow it." 

"Which doesn't mean Earth is devoid of arbitrary and idiotic sets of rules. Are you going to pretend you don't know they have a network of institutions whose sole purpose appears to be forcing the rules of rugby football into the heads of teenage boys?" 

"You can't compare this... this marriage thing to some stupid ball game!" 

"If my headmaster had heard you call rugby stupid you'd have been in detention for a fortnight. And they seem quite similar to me." Turlough drained his drink. "They're both all about who gets to sit on whose face. And, of course, making sure we change ends at half time." 

"You're disgusting!" 

"I just meant swapping bedrooms. As we're doing tonight." 

"You don't expect me to believe that, do you?" 

"It seems to me you're the one with the dirty mind." Turlough rose to his feet. "Ready when you are, Nyssa." 

Nyssa, who'd been following the discussion with her usual look of detachment, rose in turn. "Oh, I'm ready." 

"Let's go, then." 

They walked to the elaborately ribboned door that led to their assigned bedroom. Before they could reach it, though, Tegan, in a flurry of footsteps, was alongside Turlough. 

"Good night," she said, rather than — as he'd half-expected — punching him. Then, leaning closer, she lowered her voice to a whisper. "And good luck. You'll need it." 

Before he could make any reply, she was hurrying back across the atrium to join the Doctor. 

⁂

Turlough closed the door behind him and looked across the bed at Nyssa. 

"And here we are," he said. "Just the two of us. Did you have any thoughts about how we're going to pass the next few hours with as little discomfort as possible?" 

Nyssa looked up at him. "I think we might — if you're agreeable — we might try having sex, and see if we like it." 

"Do you now?" Turlough had half-expected something along those lines, given the hints Tegan had been dropping — not to mention his own experience with the Doctor the previous week. But hearing the words from Nyssa's own lips was a different matter. 

"The Doctor said we should try to fit in with the customs on this world, and they take marriage very seriously." A blush was creeping over Nyssa's face. "I don't like deceiving people. If we were prepared to get married we should accept the consequences." 

"We got married just so they'd let us use this house. I wasn't aware that you had other motives in mind." 

"Really?" Nyssa forced a laugh. "Normally you suspect everyone of ulterior motives." 

Turlough weighed up three possible replies to that, but decided it would be wiser not to let Nyssa hear any of them. 

"Anyway." By now, Nyssa's cheeks were burning. "I just thought we ought to make the experiment. At least then if anyone asks us we can honestly say we tried." 

She waited for a while. When Turlough made no further answer, she said "Well? Are we going to try having sex or not?" 

"I'm thinking about it." 

"Really?" Nyssa had taken the hem of her nightgown in her fingers and was fiddling with it. "You've been dropping hints all week about what you'd do to me, given half the chance. But the moment I ask you to do it, all you do is 'think about it.' Were you just saying those things to annoy me?" 

"Of course not. I was trying to wind Tegan up as well." He folded his arms. "And I didn't quite expect you to hand yourself to me on a plate. On my world we have a saying: 'Always careen the ship of Logor.'" He looked at her blank expression. "I suppose it loses something in translation." 

"You're worried that I'm making things too easy for you?" 

"Just now you accused me of looking for ulterior motives in everyone's actions. You really shouldn't be surprised when I actually do. If I do agree to rish with you—" 

"To what?" 

"Rish. Short for _rishathra_. It's an Earth word, meaning to have sex with a sapient of a different species. Typical of the humans, isn't it? Inventing words for situations they don't believe have any chance of happening." 

Nyssa shook her head. "It's not a word that Tegan used. But you were saying something about motives?" 

"If we rish, what do you hope to get out of it?" 

"I thought it would be an interesting experiment in interspecies biology. And... I want to find out more about my own preferences." 

Turlough raised his eyebrows. "Don't you know?" 

"I'm— I was part of the Traken Union." Nyssa's attention still seemed fixed on the hem of her gown. "But when the Keeper was dying, I realised that people were different without his influence. For example, I was able to bribe the Fosters." 

"And usually they wouldn't have taken bribes?" 

"Certainly not. But usually, I wouldn't have even thought of trying to." She finally let go of the hem. "Anyway, now there's no Keeper at all. And I'm not sure what that means for me; but I'd like to take this opportunity to find out." 

"You'd like to explore your potential for debauchery?" 

"I wouldn't put it quite like that." Her eyes met his. "But I think the answer must be 'yes.'" 

"Then I'm prepared to oblige. Provided you don't do any permanent damage." 

"Tegan said something very similar. Well, she actually said, 'That won't take my fingers off if I put them in there, will it?'" 

"I presume it didn't." 

Nyssa coloured. "Of course it didn't!" She pulled her gown off and threw herself down on the bed, looking defiantly up at him. "Look at me. Do I look as if I could do you the slightest harm?" 

"No," Turlough admitted, taken slightly aback by the challenge in her eyes. "Of course, that doesn't rule out something along the lines of a concealed venom sac." He dodged the pillow she threw at him. "I take it that wasn't how you'd have liked me to answer?" 

"It would have been nice if you'd said something along the lines of 'Nyssa, you're beautiful.' But I suppose that was too much to hope for." 

"Then I'll willingly admit that you're beautiful." 

"And I'll promise not to chop bits of you off or poison you or whatever other worst-case scenarios you're thinking of." She put her hands behind her head, and gave him another one of those unsettlingly direct looks. "I've shown you mine: aren't you going to show me yours?" 

"I'd appreciate it if you could refrain from bursting out laughing," Turlough said. He unfastened his own robe and removed it. "There. No tentacles or poisonous spines, I'm afraid." 

Nyssa looked him up and down. "I think it's worth making the experiment, don't you?" 

"If not, we'll always wonder what would have happened." Turlough climbed onto the bed beside her. "We'd better settle the question one way or the other." 

He leaned in to kiss her, and found Nyssa's finger against his lips. 

"I'd like to know about the ship of Logor first," she said. "It's a warning about something you shouldn't do, isn't it? I don't want to do it." 

"The ship of Logor was a gift to Hanarch," Turlough said, gently pushing her finger away. "Hanarch set sail in it without checking that it was watertight. The consequences were predictable." 

"So it's a story about not trusting others' generosity?" Her other hand caught his as he reached for her once more. 

"Or about taking reasonable precautions if you do." 

"And careening? What does that involve?" By now, Nyssa's attempts to deflect him were clearly nothing more than teasing. 

"You tip the ship over, and make a thorough examination of the bottom." 

Nyssa's expression verged on the mischievous. "Then you'd better do that to me, hadn't you?" 

"Once I've dealt with the matter at hand." Turlough pushed both her hands to one side, and his lips finally met hers. 

⁂

"You're shivering," Turlough said. "Are you all right?" 

"Yes." Nyssa raised her head slightly from his chest. "It's just a physiological reaction that we— that I—" She broke off, and started again. "It is a fact of Trakenite physiology that shivering often follows sex. Please don't take it personally." 

"I'll try not to." It might have been wiser to leave it at that, but Turlough couldn't resist adding "Was the experiment a success, from your point of view? Or do you need to wait until you've written up your notes?" 

Nyssa didn't seem offended. "I think we're compatible — on the physical level, at least." 

"According to the Doctor, there was a Time Lord once who wrote a big book all about the different varieties of genitalia. He'd probably say that ours match to twenty or so places. Of course, the point of the story, as the Doctor told it, was that this man spent all his time classifying sex organs and hadn't a clue what it was like to use them." 

"I take it you had that conversation last week?" 

"We're newly married, after all. I think he might have been trying to be romantic." 

"I'm surprised you even noticed." Nyssa, by now, had raised herself on her elbows and was looking down at him. "I don't think some of the things you suggested tonight were very romantic at all." 

"Wasn't the point of the exercise to discover what you find acceptable?" 

"Going past it into the unacceptable was your idea." Nyssa gave him a long, analysing look. "Anyway, I'll bear it in mind for tomorrow. Or tonight, depending how long your refractory period is." 

"Exactly what are you suggesting?" 

"I'd have thought it was obvious. You've been testing my limits: next time, it'll be my turn to test yours." Nyssa's expression was as guileless as ever, with only that slight hint of mischief. "As you put it yourself: in this marriage, we change ends at half-time."


End file.
